'Damn, I wish I had a camera.' Wesley laughed some more.
'No, you don't.'
I returned the cap to its proper position as I thought of anyone taking a picture of us together. I was reminded that we were outlaws, and the merry moment vanished. We walked on.
'Benton, this can't go on forever,' I said.
He did not speak.
I went on, 'In your real world you are a committed husband and father, and then we go out of town.'
'How do you feel about it?' he said, tension returning to his voice.
'I suppose I feel the same way most people do when they're having an affair. Guilt, shame, fear, sadness. I get headaches and you lose weight.' I paused. 'Then we get around each other.'
'What about jealousy?' he asked.
I hesitated. 'I discipline myself not to feel that.'
'You can't discipline yourself not to feel.'
'Certainly you can. We both do it all the time when we're working cases like this one.'
'Are you jealous of Connie?' he persisted as we walked.
'I have always been fond of your wife and think she is a fine person.'
'But are you jealous of her relationship with me? It would be very understandable-'
I interrupted him. 'Why must you push this, Benton?'
'Because I want us to face the facts and sort through them, somehow.'
'All right, then you tell me something,' I said. 'When I was with Mark while he was your partner and best friend, were you ever jealous?'
'Of whom?' He tried to be funny.
'Were you ever jealous of my relationship with Mark?' I said.
He did not answer right away.
'I would be lying if I didn't admit that I've always been attracted to you. Strongly attracted,' he finally said.
I thought back to times when Mark, Wesley and I had been together. I searched for the faintest hint of what he had just said. I could not remember. But when I had been with Mark, I was focused only on him.
'I have been honest,' Wesley went on. 'Let's talk about you and Connie again. I need to know.'
'Why?'
'I need to know if all of us could ever be together,' he said.
I need to know.'
'Why?'
'I need to know if all of us could ever be together,' he said. 'Like the old days when you had dinner with us, when you came to visit. My wife has begun to ask why you don't do that anymore.'
'You're saying that you fear she is suspicious.' I felt paranoid.
'I'm saying that the subject has come up. She likes you. Now that you and I work together, she wonders why that means she sees less of you rather than more.'
'I can see why she might wonder,' I said.
'What are we going to do?'
I had been in Benton's home and watched him with his children and his wife. I remembered the touching, the smiles and allusions to matters beyond my ken as they briefly shared their world with friends. But in those days it was different because I had been in love with Mark, who now was dead.
I let go of Wesley's hand. Yellow cabs rushed by in sprays of snow, and lights were warm in apartment building windows. The park glowed the whiteness of ghosts beneath tall iron lamps.
'I can't do it,' I said to him.
We turned onto Central Park West.
'I'm sorry, but I just don't think I can be around you and Connie,' I added.
'I thought you said you could discipline your emotions.'
'That's easy for you to say because I don't have someone else in my life.'
'You're going to have to do it at some point. Even if we break this off, you're going to have to deal with my family. If we are to continue working together, if we are to be friends.'
'So now you're giving me ultimatums.'
'You know I'm not.'
I quickened my pace. The first time we had made love I had made my life a hundred times more complicated. Certainly, I had known better. I had seen more than one poor fool on my autopsy table who had decided to get involved with someone married. People annihilated themselves and others. They became mentally ill and got sued.
I passed Tavern on the Green. I stared up at the Dakota on my left, where John Lennon was killed on a corner years ago. The subway station was very close to Cherry Hill, and I wondered if Gault might have left the park and come here. I stood and stared. That night, December 8, I was driving home from a court case when I heard on the radio that Lennon had been shot dead by a nobody carrying a copy of Catcher in the Rye.
'Benton,' I said, 'Lennon used to live there.'
'Yes,' he said. 'He was killed right over there by that entrance.'
'Is there any possibility Gault cared about that?'
He paused. 'I haven't thought about it.'
'Should we think about it?'
He was silent as he looked up at the Dakota with its sandblasted brick, wrought iron and copper trim.
'We probably should think about everything,' he said.